Abstract
We report the highest and southernmost documented records of 2 species of Ecuadorian birds: Sunbittern Eurypyga helias (Pallas, 1781) in the southern end of Podocarpus National Park and Black-necked Stilt Himantopus mexicanus (Statius Müller, 1776) in Yacuri National Park. Considering these and other records, both species might be expanding their ranges into the highlands, but the necessity to fill geographical, morphological, and taxonomic gaps on Ecuadorian birds remains.
Highlights
We report the highest and southernmost documented records of 2 species of Ecuadorian birds: Sunbittern Eurypyga helias (Pallas, 1781) in the southern end of Podocarpus National Park and Black-necked Stilt Himantopus mexicanus (Statius Müller, 1776) in Yacuri National Park
Himantopus mexicanus was formerly considered a subspecies of Old World H. himantopus, and many authors continue to treat them as conspecific, whereas others treat the South American H. melanurus as a separate species
Eurypyga h. helias occurs in the lowlands of eastern Ecuador ranging up to 1,000 m a.s.l. (Ridgely and Greenfield 2001) lies 60 km from our record, there are a few records from 1997 on the Bombuscaro river, in the Podocarpus National Park (Ridgely and Greenfield 2001, eBird 2017), 42 km from our record, these records could be of E. h. meridionalis (Ridgely and Greenfield 2001, eBird 2017), but there is no documentation to determine it
Summary
Noteworthy records of Sunbittern Eurypyga helias (Pallas, 1781) (Eurypygiformes, Eurypygidae) and Black-necked Stilt Himantopus mexicanus (Statius Müller, 1776) (Charadriiformes, Recurvirostridae) from the southern Andes of Ecuador.
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